PJ and family took their kittys to Baton Rouge early Sunday morning. Hopefully they are fine. New Orleans took almost a direct hit but Katrina didn't quite have the punch everyone anticipated. I'm sure there is Major damage but from what I see it is not as bad as it could have been.
I'm waiting and watching for good news.
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I know no news from PJ, but I have heard from a friend who *stayed* in his home in the French Quarter (!) and all was well there at that time (@ 10:00 AM my time). There was no water in the house and the pumps for the streets in his area were holding.

As of 1:00 PM there, the levees were holding (built only to withstand Category 3!), save one breech which was not catastrophic. The 5-ness of the storm did cease before it hit New Orleans, and it veered east. Good for NOLA, bad for Gulfport, Pass Christian, Mississippi in general, etc.

When I told one of my New Orleans refugee houseguests over the phone (from school here) that I'd seen internet footage of Gulfport WITH THE GULF OF MEXICO IN THE STREETS (NOT rain!), she quipped, "Weeeell, Gulfport is really just a buncha strip malls; it's not gonna be too hard to replace it! Not like New Orleans!!"

I'd sure hate to be one of the 8-10,000 in the Superdome with no electricity. You coastal Californians just don't KNOW heat 'til you've been in that city. And I've never been there without being to escape, running from my AC'd car to the AC'd buildings! Phoenix was withering at 103 degrees, but that Southern humidity thang, baby. *Man*

Going home to my houseguests (2 humans and a canine) and to watch news footage. Keep those states in your prayers.

The hotel she is staying in in Baton Rouge has no power and doesn't know when
they will have power back up, they do have a generator but only enough
juice for 6 days, so they will only be powering it up at night. She
was told she may be looking at a month before power is restored back
in N.O.
She still doesn't have a clue how her house did through the storm,
although from the images she has seen on the local news stations,
based on landmarks she can recognize, she thinks her house may be
sitting in up to two feet of water right now. But she has no real idea
when she will be able to make it back home to check it out to see if
there was any damage or not. She seems to have a pretty positive
attitude, that even if her house is sitting in 2 feet of water it
could have been much worse.
Please keep your fingers crossed for PJ and all our other Gulf Coast Tiki Central members and their friends and families.

Dawntiki, tell PJ to come on over to Houston and stay with me! Seriously!

I think she has an aged cat or 5, though, which would be the only hitch, since one guest, "Bear," is a big black lab. But if she's feline-free, my living room convert-a-bed couch is free. Please let her know. I'll PM you to give you my phone number in case she doesn't still have it.

Crap is right! What a terrible situation. What happens now? Since they can't simply wait for the flood water to recede, but rather (I assume, perhaps incorrectly) have to rebuild the levees and pump out all that water, does that mean that all that has to be completed before Purple Jade can even go back to find out how her home has fared? Oof. Having to wait without being able to do anything about it would make me bonkers.

I'll echo what others have said -- Purple Jade, if there's anything we can do to alleviate what you're going through, please let us know.